That's what I've always thought about Ft Pillow. Forrest didn't do things half-way! His post-war activities with the klan may not have been his finest hour but, at that time, he believed the blacks should go back to the plantations. They weren't his specific targets, however, but he wasn't overly concerned if hard things happened to them. It took time for him to realize - and he did this considerably before many other Confederates - that the genie was out of the bottle. The blacks would never go back to the plantations and their rights were supported by the amendments to the Constitution - which document he was sworn to uphold - and by Grant's administration. It's not a coincidence he quit the klan when Grant won the election! Forrest wasn't particularly racist, by the way. He believed the best condition for the blacks was slavery and didn't believe any should be free for any reason, but racism contains hatred. There's no evidence he hated them. His religious conversion, I believe, was real. One Sunday his wife finally dragged him to church - he'd always left the praying to the women of his family. The sermon the preacher was giving was based on the parable Jesus gave about the foolish man who built his house on sand, and when the storm came the sand was washed away and the house fell. This struck Forrest like a chunk of cement between the eyes. He took the minister aside and was much shaken, and said, "I am that man." He realized that he had built his house on the sand of slavery and the war was the storm that washed it away, and his house. I think Forrest, at the end of his life, was considerably different. 3,000+ black people seemed to think so, too - that's how many came to his funeral. It wasn't just to make sure the devil was dead, either! Many left flowers and other mementos as well.